to my immediate right is ilhan tanir, washington d.c. correspondent for a nation might turkish is favre. he is also a non resident fellow at the british and rejection society. and he has visited syria on three different occasions, in 2012. his first visit he stayed in the suburbs of damascus and in early august he was in elbow and has had the chance to be with the free syrian army or the rebel forces as well as the civilian council as, i'm sure mohammed ghanem is well. he has written extensive articles on what he has witnessed which i encourage people to look at. so with that intersection, i would like to start off just with that general question. we're going to run the session in a question and answer style, and i'm sure the people in the audience have many questions to ask, but i'll start out with a just a few and then turned over to the audience. starting with you, the news that we are receiving in the u.s. is very much right now focused on the issue of chemical weapons, the emergence of islamist forces , the question of whether or no